On November 13, 2015, the DEA issued its final decision and order in the case against Perry County Food & Drug (“PCFD”). The Administrator denied PCFD’s pending application to renew its registration based on stipulations by PCFD that its pharmacist-in-charge, who happened to be the son of PCFD’s owner, created and filled fraudulent prescriptions and committed numerous other acts that each amounted to “an outright drug deal.” The Administrator also found that the owner was informed of his son’s diversion activities on multiple occasions by long-standing employees and other family members. With facts like these, the Administrator’s order denying PCFD’s application is not surprising. But the decision is noteworthy for its clarification of DEA precedent concerning “community impact.”

“Community impact” is a factor that respondents have raised to turn the Agency’s “public interest” determination on its head: instead of focusing on whether the respondent’s registration is inconsistent with the public interest, this factor looks at whether the revocation of the respondent’s registration would be inconsistent with the public interest. But when PCFD made its community impact argument based on Pettigrew Rexall Drugs, the CALJ summarily dismissed the argument as having been “rendered irrelevant by Agency precedent,” citing to several cases involving a physician or dentist.